


Nigredo

by Chanel_Pirate



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: And Keeps Getting Nastier, Body Horror, Comes Back Wrong, Dark, Disturbing Content, Exhibitionism, Gore, Graphic Violence, Horror, Lovecraftian, M/M, Necrophilia, Nightmare Fuel, Reanimated Corpse, Reminder that Alexander is an Eldritch Abomination, Repeat This is Horror, The Darkest Humour, This is nasty, disturbing imagery, not safe for life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 07:11:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17157569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chanel_Pirate/pseuds/Chanel_Pirate
Summary: "Alexander. What are you doing."





	Nigredo

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to the tumblr morality inquisition.
> 
> I do hope you have read the tags. Please make sure you have done so before deciding if you wish to proceed.
> 
> [Required listening.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNou0R7rCM0)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexander could swear that he had only left the room for about three minutes.

 

Three minutes.

 

He stood at the doorway, and tried to piece the scene together.

 

By the wheel: the prisoner, unbound, head drooping backwards between the spokes, feet wedging him upright in an illusion of standing. In between: a red mess, intestines coiling out to the floor from a slashed-open torso.

 

By the steps: Daniel, slumped and still, hand a death-grip on a stab-wound at his chest, blood and brains still bubbling from the impact of skull on stone.

 

His eyes followed the slippery trail of blood. The room was silent but for the sound of it dripping into the drain. Everything reeked of blood and shit.

 

He set down the hammer he’d gone to retrieve, and put his hands on his hips.

 

He sighed.

 

“Fuck’s sake.”

 

 

*

 

 

This was a setback.

 

He had dealt with worse, at least.

 

Time, he never had enough time even when he had nothing but time. Now the Guardian would be focusing itself on him, once it regained its bearings. He had to leave. Soon. Soon. Daniel had already assisted with most of what had to be done.

 

But what was to say he could not continue to assist him with what little remained?

 

Alone, he had been so tired of being alone, and then Daniel had come into his life, all scatter-brained brilliance—beautiful, dangerous, mad. His.

 

Alexander did not bother trying to justify it to himself further.

 

Daniel was on the slab, lips parted and pale. He’d done what he could with the stab wound. It alone would not have killed him, not with immediate medical attention. He stitched the heart and surrounding muscle back together once he had drained and bottled all the blood he could draw.

 

The head injury was tougher. The skull had cracked without breaking the skin too badly, so Alexander had had to make a careful incision to remove the loose pieces, gently peeling the scalp back. If only Daniel had paid more attention. If only he had been less careless. He had only needed three stitches to put it back together. It was a skilful job, well done; Daniel’s hair covered the slight dent.

 

Lying there, Daniel looked almost fine, but for his extreme pallor, still chest, and bruising skin.

 

Alexander probed. Daniel’s mind was blank, as it had never been. It may as well have been a lump of charcoal.

 

He blinked several times, and shook his head. He cleared his throat, placed a hand on Daniel’s bare stomach, and began to give voice to the sacred words.

 

He may have been alone again—unless one counted Heinrich, which he never had—but he wouldn’t be for much longer.

 

He had taken so much from Daniel already. He could give him this.

 

 

*

 

 

The process did not take.

 

He could scream in frustration. He didn’t have time for this. His work of centuries was almost done. He could soon go home. It wasn’t that important. He didn’t need him. He didn’t—

 

But he wanted him there.

 

He tried again. He tried all the words the humans had in their crude languages. He tried it with all possible intentions. He invoked all the Great Old Ones he could think of, and especially those he couldn’t. He tried the Ancient Tongues. He tried to feel anything stir in that mind, winding his own through it so deeply that he himself toed the boundaries of oblivion.

 

He kept chanting through his catching breath, choking on his own impotence.

 

Previous attempts had succeeded. The subjects had been alive, however—correct procedure involved possessing and converting the moment of death. It worked. It did. Heinrich was testament to this. Wilhelm and his friends, less so. Alexander had owned their deaths. But now, when it counted most, Alexander had missed it. A supernova had been extinguished like a pinched-out candle, and fool that he was—he had missed it.

 

For what?

 

Exhausted, he slid to the floor, back against stone. He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control his breathing.

 

He kept destroying pieces of his heart, without meaning to. Daniel had owned more of him than he had expected. Why did he always—

 

He wept. He let himself succumb to rare self-pity, forehead pressed against his knees, and wept.

 

Then, at the edge of his field of vision: one pale leg swung off the edge of the slab, then another.

 

He leapt to his feet, ignoring his protesting knees as he swung round to face Daniel, putting his hands on his shoulders.

 

“Daniel! Daniel, how are you feeling?” he asked, feeling rather stupid as he did, but he couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his face.

 

He looked into Daniel’s eyes. Daniel’s eyes stared back. Empty.

 

When Alexander reached out with his mind, he encountered nothing but dead weight. Charcoal.

 

His grin died.

 

Daniel stared at him, blank.

 

“Excuse me,” he muttered, moving away without turning his back, “I’m—I must—what am I doing.”

 

He left the room.

 

Daniel’s head turned to follow the movement.

 

 

*

 

 

He tried to ignore the shade that had been Daniel. It kept following him.

 

Eventually, he conceded that it was muscle he could use. It could follow basic instructions. It seemed to understand that theirs was a risky endeavour. It seemed to understand, in general. It helped him restrain the prisoners; it handed him tools upon request. Sometimes it seemed to know what was required without being asked.

 

Once, a prisoner had threatened Alexander. He strained against his manacles to their limits as he tried to reach him. He looked as though he would have gladly cut through both his wrists if it would mean taking Alexander down with him.

 

Alexander had managed such situations before, alone. He knew all about trapped animals, after all.

 

Daniel had moved in front of Alexander, and raised his palm. When the prisoner did not abate, Daniel moved further forward, covering the prisoner’s face with his palm, and started to press.

 

Alexander watched, fascinated, squinting against the spraying blood, and turned away as he heard the crunch. The maimed body fell to the floor.

 

When he turned back, Daniel was standing there, looking at him, hand dripping red.

 

Alexander didn’t know why there were tears on his face.

 

“There’s a lot of blood to collect,” he forced out. “I’ll do that, and we’ll get you cleaned up, what do you say?”

 

Daniel said nothing.

 

He didn’t know what he was expecting.

 

He didn’t know.

 

 

*

 

 

He’d taken to speaking to Daniel, much as he once had—except now it was without inhibition. He told him all about glittering galaxies and glowing gods and the different flavours of magic, of names without faces and all that existed in between the cracks of the universe, of kings and empresses and distant lands, of war and love, of betrayal and loss, of the heart-wrenching pain and loneliness of centuries, and death, and death, and death, as though Daniel knew naught of the latter.

 

Daniel would only stare. He seemed to listen. No, more. He seemed to see.

 

For the first time, Alexander was known.

 

 

*

 

 

“Alexander. What are you doing.”

 

He frowned over at Heinrich, clutching a beaker of freshly-distilled vitae to his chest. His voice in his mind held a note of disapproval.

 

“I’d have thought you’d realise by now that the more you ask that very question, the less of an answer you’ll get.”

 

He had no idea why he kept allowing Heinrich to connect to him. He supposed it was a sort of company. Might as well, if he had to hang there on his wall for all those years. Even if he couldn’t half go on.

 

“I see you with that boy trailing your shadow, with every step you take. You won’t stop talking to him. Chattering away about all and sundry. It’s frustrating to watch, Alexander. Don’t you see it’s pointless? He’s worse off than Wilhelm. There’s nothing there. Can’t you feel it?”

 

Alexander sighed, and raised the beaker to his lips, rolling his eyes at Heinrich.

 

“And what do you think you are doing now? I thought you needed every bit of the vitae for the portal. I don’t understand you. Do you want us to succumb to the Guardian of the Orb? For God’s sake Alexander, are you even listening? Why do you even let me speak if you won’t pay attention? Is it just something to amuse you?”

 

Alexander drank, rolling the thick liquid about his tongue, closing his eyes.

 

“He’s just so very delicious,” he murmured, and moved closer to Heinrich. He couldn’t help the spite lacing his voice. “Beautiful. The best I’ve ever had.”

 

Heinrich stared. Everyone only ever seemed to stare, around here. “There is a story about Alexander the Great. I wonder if you have heard it. Plutarch reports that Alexander first wept only upon hearing Anaxarchus speak of an infinite number of worlds, for it was then he understood that he would never be master of them all.”

 

“That’s anecdotal.” He took another sweet sip. “Some say he wept only when he realised he had no more lands left to conquer.”

 

“I thought it would bear mentioning,” Heinrich said, and blessedly, fell quiet. The nave was silent. A rare instance.

 

“Have you heard the one about the daughter of Herodias?” Alexander broke the silence, dizzy with the vitae. “She lusted after Jokanaan, the Baptist, imprisoned for speaking heresies against the Tetrarch’s rule. When he spurned her, even as he was in chains and helpless before her—do you know what happened then?”

 

“Yes, yes, everyone knows that story. She demanded his head on a silver platter, and she got it. What has that got to do with anything at all?”

 

Alexander shrugged, with a scimitar smile. “Thought it would bear mentioning. Come, Daniel,” he said over his shoulder to Daniel, who had been standing there with his eyes fixed on Heinrich. “We have a busy day ahead of us.”

 

“Alexander, I wish you could understand that I only hope you find peace. One way or another,” Heinrich called out with his mind, but Alexander was already blocking him out.

 

But for a parting shot.

 

“And you’ll find that I was listening, unfortunately. I do think it amusing, so amusing, that you seem to still be harbouring the thought that I’ll be taking you with me. Oh, Heinrich. Good day.”

 

He swept towards the chancel, Daniel at his heels and the vitae on his lips.

 

He was walking on air.

 

 

*

 

 

He was shaken from sleep by cold hands. Startled, he looked up at Daniel’s impassive face. A chill of something travelled through him. He could not stand to look upon him for too long, for every time he did he noticed new signs of decay. The blueing flesh. Hollowing temples and cheeks.

 

He had been so handsome. It was a tragedy.

 

Daniel sat by him on the bed, as Alexander sat up, watching him watch him.

 

Daniel was unblinking in the half-light. Alexander was trapped.

 

And then, he felt it, something, a thought, a nudge at the corner of his mind, a child tugging on the hem of its mother’s dress.

 

Daniel leaned in. Blinked.

 

It began to form.

 

Who

 

Who—

 

 

*

 

 

Who am I.

 

 

*

 

 

Alexander didn’t know what to say.

 

He started with what he knew. Daniel remained blank.

 

There was no further response or recognition.

 

 

*

 

 

In Alexander’s defence, he hadn’t initiated it.

 

But neither had he stopped it, when Daniel pinned him to the bed, and that weight was so familiar, and for a moment Alexander forgot all that had happened, that Daniel was dead, he couldn’t help arching into him as Daniel curled into his warmth, thinking of their last encounter and all the things Daniel had whispered in his ear as he had held him down.

 

And those eyes. Always those eyes, those beautiful eyes, now beginning to turn milky.

 

The detail brought Alexander to the present. He swallowed, and battled against a pang of fear. At least Daniel was still unpredictable. He had adored that in him. But now, he didn’t know what Daniel would do. He could hurt him if he wanted, maim him, kill him, and he couldn’t help his terror at the weight of the body on his, and he didn’t know why he had an erection.

 

Daniel noticed. His head moved to look at his midsection.

 

Then, a cold hand crept up his thigh, pushed up his nightshirt, and closed around his cock.

 

He had been expecting anything, but not that, and he had really ought to move away, push Daniel off him, anything, but Daniel was so close to him, his hand, his hand firm just as it had once been on him, stroking him, and he could only close his eyes and sigh, because it was Daniel, and he was there. He wound an arm around Daniel’s back and bit back his moans.

 

When he came, he opened his eyes to see Daniel staring at him. Always staring. The edges of his orgasm soured.

 

He had never wanted any of this.

 

 

*

 

 

He had more wine than usual the next day, and ignored Daniel but for giving him perfunctory instructions. It wasn’t Daniel. It wasn’t.

 

In a few days, a few short days, he could go home at last, and he would be able to put this all behind him. This world, this castle, all this filth. Daniel.

 

But Daniel was so beautiful.

 

 

*

 

 

“Must you really do that here?”

 

Alexander grinned through grit teeth and ran his fingers through Daniel’s hair, taking care not to pull on the brittle strands. “Why, are you jealous?”

 

He had been relighting the candles around Heinrich’s little domain. He’d had a little passing thought, memories of Daniel alive and kneeling before him, his mouth, and it had just been an idle thought of a lonely old man.

 

Both he and Heinrich had watched, the latter in horror, as Daniel had knelt, and began unfastening Alexander’s trousers. Alexander hadn’t really thought much after that, except to concede that he really had missed Daniel’s mouth, and that it was most amusing that Heinrich was forced to watch.

 

That had got him hard faster than he would have thought. That, and Daniel’s attentions.

 

Alexander moaned. Daniel’s mouth was as he remembered it. Skilled. Wet. He wasn’t going to think about what the wetness was.

 

“Alexander, that is disgusting. Come now.”

 

“No, my dear, I’ve still got a little while to go before I’m there. You don’t have to watch. Pervert. Oh, wait. You do.”

 

Heinrich’s husk had none of the machinery to form a scowl, yet the expression was apparent nonetheless. For once, he said nothing. Alexander slammed his cock into Daniel. He took it so well. Obedient. So unlike Daniel. Alexander pushed his sweat-damp hair off his face, darted out his tongue to wet his lips, and smirked over at Heinrich.

 

“I can’t remember, is this how you lost your jaw?” He gentled his thrusts. The mandible was indeed delicate, especially at this stage of decomposition, and he wouldn’t want to ruin what was left of Daniel’s beauty. “How does it feel, Heinrich, to know that a corpse is better than you at fellatio? A fellow corpse, rather.” The palate and throat were a little softer than they had been. He would have to be careful. He wouldn’t want to tear through anything.

 

Heinrich was silent. Alexander’s breath shallowed.

 

“Perhaps this is why Johann left us, you know. With all he could see, perhaps he also saw that this is the sum of your worth, rotting, hanging, useless. Perhaps you couldn’t please him. You were made to be left behind, you dog.”

 

Heinrich was silent. Daniel did something with his bloated tongue that made Alexander growl.

 

“I wonder what Johann would say now. All his lies, come to nothing. Perhaps I shall take a sketch of you, and show it to him when I see him next, as I strangle him to death. Perhaps I will do the same to him as I have done to you.”

 

He could taste Heinrich’s anguish, sharp in his mind. It brought him closer. Daniel licked at his frenulum, hand stroking what his mouth didn’t cover, and he had to close his eyes, mouth dropping open as he arched his back.

 

“About that daughter of Herodias. You do know she was eventually slain, childless.” Heinrich’s voice was small, quiet.

 

“Yes, yes, and eventually Herod Agrippa would come to power,” Alexander panted. “You are very clever, yes. Agrippa the Great, indeed. Seen any good plays lately? Apologies, I keep forgetting! You can’t.”

 

Heinrich sent pity into his mind, and a spike of rage magnified and mixed into his lust. Rage at always being wronged, rage at always being alone, rage that everything had always come to nothing, rage that he could not even own Daniel’s death. “Fuck your pity, Heinrich.” He was close, now. So close.

 

Heinrich’s voice was sad when it next travelled into his mind. “I have never known you to be this cruel. The Orb has changed you.”

 

“No, this is who I always was, didn’t you know, my dear?” Against his own caution, he slammed into Daniel’s mouth, almost throwing him off-balance. He felt a couple of teeth come loose. “What do you say, shall I come in his mouth?”

 

“You may as well add to the putrescence,” Heinrich sniped, but Alexander lost it to the wave that overtook him then, of momentary pleasure and warmth that lifted him out of those dirty dungeons and into a place where for a single moment in time, he had something good, and was able to acknowledge it as such.

 

He tucked himself away as Daniel continued to kneel, semen seeping from his lips.

 

“Alexander. You were magnificent, once,” Heinrich pleaded. “Where did we all turn for the worse?”

 

“I suppose you could ask Johann,” he snapped. “Daniel, get up.”

 

Daniel kneeled still. A few teeth dropped out of his mouth. Alexander growled, and cuffed him about the head. Daniel teetered and sagged back into place. He continued to look ahead, unblinking. Not satisfied, Alexander kicked at his ribs. Something crunched as Daniel slumped over sideways.

 

“I swear by the sun, I am surrounded by useless sacks of flesh,” he cried as he stormed out of the nave.

 

 

*

 

 

Almost there, almost there, he told himself as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the chamber pot. He hadn’t even eaten in two days. It was all bile. Almost there.

 

He buried his face in a washcloth, still kneeling on the floor before his throw-up, and screamed.

 

 

*

 

 

Daniel was there, at his threshold. He was looking the worse for wear. Bloated. Skin mottled. Eyes blind white, gums and nail beds retracted. Alexander had been avoiding him. He couldn’t stand to look at him any more.

 

But Daniel was there, and a flood of something tore into him, and his hands were on Daniel’s swollen waist before he could help himself.

 

“My heart, I am sorry,” he cried, weeping as he left kisses Daniel would not—could not—return on too-pliant lips. “I am so very sorry. You may never know how sorry I am. But I am not sorry that I am leaving.”

 

Daniel stood, unmoving. Unmoved. He felt nothing from him but shades of suggestions of murmurs, all to the same effect of what he had heard before. Confusion. Loss.

 

He kissed him again. “I loved you. My heart is treacherous and weak, you see. I loved you. I never told you. I love you. I should have told you.”

 

The eyes bored through him.

 

He could only see his own reflection on their marble-like surface.

 

 

*

 

 

The final preparations were upon him. He hadn’t noticed that the Guardian was commencing its rapid approach into the grounds until he emerged into the back hall to find it covered in rotting, pulsing meat. A Gatherer lay there, in several pieces.

 

“Hm. I suppose you did have to join us at some point. Prick.”

 

It roared.

 

“Yes, yes, charmed I’m sure. Very frightening.”

 

He walked briskly back to the lift. Just in case.

 

 

*

 

 

“This is it, I’m afraid. Can you hear it?”

 

Heinrich somehow sighed in his mind. “Yes, Alexander. As can anyone who may still be alive within five miles of this castle.”

 

“I’ll be gone tomorrow. I’d say parting is such sweet sorrow, but I think there are enough lies between us,” he said, showing sharp teeth.

 

“What of the boy?”

 

“Oh, you can have what’s left of him for company. You can talk at him to your heart’s content, and he won’t even interrupt.”

 

He was about to turn away, to continue with all the little things that he would have to put in place, but then Heinrich’s voice hit him with a timbre he was not accustomed to in all his years of life. Kindness.

 

“I do hope you find peace, Alexander.”

 

He paused.

 

“I will send Johann your warmest regards,” he hissed as he left for the Inner Sanctum.

 

 

*

 

 

All was done. The Orb Chamber was prepared.

 

One thing remained. One thing that had been leaving him restless, squirming at his mind, like a bit of apple skin caught between one’s teeth.

 

Gods, but he missed the feeling of Daniel inside him, and he was curious, always so curious, and that was what kept getting him into these situations—that thirst. That is what he told himself, as he held Daniel down, fingers leaving depressions in his skin wherever he touched him.

 

He preferred it the other way round, with Daniel—the girth, the strength of him, he was faint just thinking about it—but Daniel’s body could no longer maintain an erection. And besides, he wouldn’t want anything breaking off inside him. That would be too much.

 

But thrusting into Daniel now, Daniel looking up at him from hollowed-out eye sockets, mask-like, he could see the void that he would soon breach, he could grasp at the sense of home, and it left him breathless.

 

“You’re beautiful. Oh, you’re beautiful.”

 

Something gave, inside, which probably shouldn’t have. Alexander elected to ignore it, thrusting into the accretion of wetness. Goodness knew he had already had to use almost an entire bottle of slick. There wasn’t a lot of resistance, and he had to keep making adjustments to their position. Daniel’s head lolled with every thrust.

 

He left kisses on his neck, on his chest, wherever he could reach. He wrapped his mind about where Daniel’s should have been, tried to see if he could feel himself thrust into him, trying to share the sensation, and there was a cavity where there should have been Daniel’s mind, but he crawled into it anyway, wishing to own every corner he could claim. He tried to feel it, yes, he imagined he could almost feel it, Daniel fucking him as he once had.

 

He would never own his death. But he could have this. This moment.

 

It crested and broke over him without warning, like a gunshot to the head. He came, whimpering through sobs, convulsing, biting at Daniel’s shoulder. The skin tore, and stuck to his lips.

 

He peeled it off, throwing it aside in disgust. He stroked Daniel’s hair away from his face, ignoring that some strands came off in his hands. He thought for a moment that his eyes followed the motion.

 

But no, Daniel was still. Staring.

 

He dragged his eyes over what he could see of the body. Daniel had looked better.

 

It all rather stank.

 

“Come on now, get up. We must to work. I’m going home.”

 

He pulled out, and decided that he would definitely not look down at his penis again until he had washed and disinfected it.

 

 

*

 

 

A man who wasn’t a man and a corpse that wasn’t a corpse walked through the Inner Sanctum.

 

It sounded like the beginning of a joke. Alexander grinned.

 

Finally, he would see his beloved.

 

And he would balance the ledgers. He had some vengeance to wreak.

 

He laughed as they entered the Orb Chamber, wiping his bleeding palm on Daniel. Yes, it was happening. It was truly happening. He felt lighter, younger, buoyed by something he never thought he would ever feel again. Hope.

 

He turned to Daniel.

 

“Thank you, my friend. You have been loyal, beyond the end. You will be celebrated forever.”

 

It wasn’t Daniel. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Daniel was dead. He didn’t know why he had bothered to say anything.

 

Perhaps he was hoping somebody was listening, somewhere.

 

He gripped Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel didn’t move. His fingers dipped into something wet. He quickly retrieved his hand.

 

“Now. Shall we begin?”

 

 

*

 

 

The portal closed, and all was silent.

 

A body crumpled to the floor.

 

And then came the rumbling, the roaring, the rot of aeons starting to fall apart on itself, dust and stone coming loose.

 

On the ground, awaiting burial, was a marionette with its strings cut, fallen and discarded like a dead child’s rag doll.

 

Its cadaver eyes were fixed on the heavens.

 

They saw nothing.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, and may you be blessed on this holiest of days.
> 
> Tumblr @chanelpirate for more festive cheer.


End file.
